America needs labor unions more than ever

By BABETTE FAEHMEL, Commentary

Published 10:10 pm, Monday, June 11, 2012

That Scott Walker is still the governor of Wisconsin should worry us all. Governor Walker made national headlines when he slashed the collective bargaining rights of public-sector workers. The fact that the recall effort in a state once known for its progressive politics failed will strengthen the forces intent on squeezing the last bit of blood out of what once was a formidable force in politics: organized labor. You may just as well say goodbye to the idea of the American Dream.

What happened in Wisconsin reflects the fact that for many of us, labor unions seem hopelessly out of date. Sure, when Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle," we might have needed them, but today?

Membership has been shrinking for decades, yet Americans continued to realize their dreams, haven't they?

If we can realize our dreams without all this collective-bargaining nonsense, then who needs a union?

The fact is, however, that upward economic mobility has historically been within reach of ordinary working Americans mainly because a powerful organization bargained on their behalf. Without a group that represents our interests, we have about as much clout as a medieval peasant.

The phrase the American Dream entered the national discourse in the 1930s, which not coincidentally was also when Congress passed the Wagner Act (1933), establishing the right for collective bargaining. For the next few decades — and thanks to government support for labor, education and infrastructure development — the middle class expanded, and its wealth grew in tandem with that of management. Considering how well their interests were served, few workers had a problem with union fees and the idea of collective bargaining seemed as American as apple pie.

Union membership peaked in 1979 at about 21 percent of the workforce, but increasingly, members of the business community were feeling squeezed. To some, collective bargaining had always been a socialistic and un-American attack of "free enterprise."

By the late 1970s, against the backdrop of another economic crisis, their voices gained in influence. Aggressively using their resources to gain political influence, organizations like the National Federation of Independent Business courted Washington insiders and lobbied to shift the national consensus. Most of the approximately $3 billion spent on lobbying nowadays comes from major corporations.

Parallel to this injection of big bucks into the political process, the business community also launched an effort to influence the teachings of economics. As a result, what we regard as self-evident has changed considerably since the 1930s. While we once thought that regulatory legislation and government mediation in labor-management conflicts advanced the interests of the majority, we now see this as a danger to freedom. Today we believe that we need to be left alone so that we can freely sell our labor to the highest bidder. The popularity of organized labor, meanwhile, once seen as the guarantor of opportunity for the working class, has declined to a historic low.

The attack on public-sector unions is only one battle in a longer war for political influence between organized labor and organized management. The outcome will affect us all. What we increasingly see in retrospect is that the end of union strength was also the beginning of the shrinking of the middle class and growth in wealth inequality not seen since the Gilded Age.

We are in danger of becoming a nation of worker drones ruled by quasi feudal lords. It is this sorry state of affairs, rather than the idea of collective bargaining or activist government, that should be considered hopelessly out-of-date and un-American.